Captured by color…and canines

The dog portraits of Kate Brogan-Haas positively vibrate with a visual intensity that attracts art connoisseurs and fledgling enthusiasts alike. Her vibrant color, bold textural dimension and uncanny canine insight capture on canvas the personality, spirit and passion of subject and artist.  Although she has worked on her dog portraits for little more than a year, Kate is drawn to them much more than the plein-air landscapes she has worked in the past. There is an animal magnetism to them, a “touch-it connection” that is both strong and emotional, and, consequently, not so easily defined.  “I guess I see a bit of myself in them.”  Kate’s style is unfettered by what she calls “pretty lines.” Instead, she has devised an energetic technique that “comes straight from the tube” and is “carved into” with her soft brush. “I have a willingness to sniff, to take a risk every time I throw a color down.” For that riot of color chemistry she uses but five colors to brilliant effect.  In her art, Kate finds similarities with the inventiveness of her play growing up in New Jersey, where, at different times in the year, sand and mud and snow were her media and her canvas. One of five children to divorced parents, Kate learned to be resourceful with her creativity and embraced whatever life doled out, however messy. “Chaos doesn’t intimidate me. I can come up with something coherent out of it.”  Pound-rescued, mixed breed Suzy joined the swelling family ranks when Kate was five. Adaptive as she was prolific (birthing a litter a year for six years), Suzy was also a vigilant mom. Kate, who initially slept with Suzy in the dog’s house, remembers trying to enter the communal abode one day as Suzy was nursing her first litter. Suzy growled, startling Kate. “My mother was wonderful at helping me understand the natural protective instincts [of dogs] and letting me know that Suzy would soon be my buddy again.”  After her mother’s death in 1997, Kate began painting professionally. She saw in her mother an artistic passion to write that was never fully realized, so Kate became more determined than ever to follow her dreams, to shape her vision into a creative reality. With her own daughter, Sarah, now grown and on her own, Kate is pursuing her passion for painting and for dogs with vigor… and it shows.

ACotter-7.13.2006

Artist Statement

I’ve found in painting my own dog as well as others a joyful and profound form of self expression. I see feelings in their expressions and various poses that reflect my own. The depth and simplicity of my experience with these precious human companions has drawn me to paint them and give them a new life as a work of art.